HEALTH TIPS

Exercise is Medicine

Pop quiz: Which has the greatest benefits for your health - Healthy eating, quitting smoking, or regular physical exercise? - The answer may surprise you. There is compelling scientific evidence to show that physical fitness provides more health benefits than either quitting smoking or losing weight.

That does not make it unimportant to address smoking and eating habits, but rather emphasizes the importance of physical activity. When scientists looked at the effects these activities had on general health, they found that daily walking for 30 min had a greater positive effect on the participants than actually losing weight. It seems that encouraging all people to be more physically active is really good advice.

By contrast, low fitness levels kill more Americans than smoking, obesity and diabetes combined. By increasing the physical activity of our population we can improve the life expectancy in our country.

Exercise should therefore be prescribed just as medicine is. It can have a direct effect on the health of the population if prescribed correctly.

At Luke and Barker we have two registered “Exercise is medicine” practitioners able to help prescribe the correct exercise for you. This is used to commonly treat conditions including diabetes, hypertension, obesity and cardiovascular disease.